Cassaday & Company

Cassaday & Company

Cassaday & Company operates from McLean, Virginia as an independent wealth management firm led by Chairman and CEO Stephan Q. Cassaday. Unlike wirehouse advisors or bank-affiliated teams, the firm maintains no proprietary products and explicitly declines insurance-company or Wall Street ownership — a structure it describes as a commitment to fiduciary objectivity. Its business model sells only advice, and its team of in-house specialists handles investment research, trading, and financial planning rather than outsourcing those functions. The firm delivers comprehensive financial planning and integrated investment management under one roof. Its service model spans at least three asset classes: traditional portfolio management, financial planning strategies, and advanced planning techniques typically reserved for large institutions and ultra-high-net-worth investors. The investment team reports to Chief Investment Officer Rachel Boyell, while a dedicated Advanced Strategies group, led by Director Carmen Bississo, tackles estate and legacy planning. The firm's website lists Financial Planning Strategies and Investment Management & Research as distinct practice groups, and its contact form specifically fields inquiries about financial plans and general questions from a marketplace that includes AI-platform users and media readers. Cassaday & Company operates from a single suite in McLean, Virginia. The leadership group includes a deep bench: COO Waleed Bississo, three Senior Partners (Justin Harris, Christopher Krell, Christopher Young), and a compliance chief reporting to the CEO. The firm publicly emphasizes a succession agreement designed for orderly transfer of ownership and governance — a direct response to Cerulli Associates data showing fewer than 20% of advisory firms have such a plan. That governance architecture is paired with a deliberate age strategy: the firm states its average employee is 37 years old, positioning next-generation advisors to serve clients for decades beyond the founder's tenure. No external recognition of a specific AUM figure or client count exists in firm materials. The structural differentiator is its refusal to outsource core intellectual functions that most RIAs of scale externalize. Investment research, trading, and financial planning are all performed in-house and bundled into a single fee, which the firm argues delivers institutional-grade integration at a retail-accessible price. Combined with a publicly documented succession agreement and a workforce built for advisory continuity rather than short-term production, the firm presents as an entity engineered to survive the founder — a bet that independent fiduciary advice combined with internalized investment operations can compound across generations without a parent company.